We just purchased a house under construction with a dedicated media room. It is being bricked so I not able to make any significant changes structurally/layout to the room.

Over the past week or two, I have agonized over which projector and screen to purchase, but I missed the bigger picture by not thinking about the layout and details of the actual room. After switching gears and making the room the priority, I have been reading over the threads and amazed at the rooms others have designed. I would appreciate some advice on how to get moving in the correct direction from the start.

The room is 173" wide by 211" deep and comes prewired for 7.1 in the ceiling, but I plan on using my floor standers for now as 5.1 system. I have a basic layout drawn up and shown below showing the general location of the prewired speaker locations, sconces, projector, ect... Smurf tube is run to the front of the room and the ceiling. The Smurf tube and all the wiring is bundled in the back right corner.

The builder placed a light fixture cutout in the middle of the room / ceiling. He realized that this wouldn't work very well for a media room and is willing to move and adjust the lighting. I feel a little fortunate the builder is easy going and offered to make the changes with having to pressure him. Now, I just need to figure out where and how to place the lights. I have initially decided to use 4" recessed 4100K led lights. I am unsure as to how far to space them from the wall and each other. Plus, the builder has placed a lot things in the ceiling already.

In the order of how we normally would use this room I would say it goes tv, sports, movies, and possibly 3d. For normal tv and sports, we like to surf the web or use the tablet so there needs to be enough light for this. For movies, we usually like it very dark. Our new house will have a family/game room out side of this one. We envision hosting guests and having them be able to mingle and move in/out of the media room. For sporting events, it might be guests just peek in to keep updated.

For the projector and screen, I have been talking with the Craig with Avs and it has been a great experience so far. I have narrowed down my projector selections between the JVC 4810 and the Sony W50es. We are starting to work on the screens which are shown in various widths. I am leaning towards 120".

If the spots are to light the room, they would be better off moved out from the walls. The spots appear to be situated as wall washers and add lighting drama.

You should think about splitting the lighting into zones and having various light son different circuits. You might to research a Lutron Grafic Eye lighting controller
if it's not to late to do some rewiring.

Wouldn't the audio video rack be better located in the closet and free up that 70.5" width? And maybe rotate the av rack so it isn't in the media room at all.

I was going to recommend that you get all the speakers out of the ceiling for a dedicated theater - but your rear wall arrangement doesn't lend itself to in-wall speakers. Definitely the front LCR out of the ceiling though. I'd be tempted to pull the side surrounds down to in-walls (leaving the rears in the ceiling), but that may cause more harm than good. Regardless, move the rear surrounds away from the corners, probably flanking the box drawn on the ceiling (can't read the text, is that the PJ or a vent?).

The projector outlet at 10' from the screen wall is well ahead of where the projector probably lands - I'd move that outlet back to 14-16', it's easier if it's behind the projector than in front. And as for the projector location - do check the projector calculator to make sure the placement is correct for the screen size (12-15' is typical).

And +1 to Tedd's comments about lighting. You want multiple dimmers and light sources - those sconces will likely need to be very low, if not off, when you're watching a movie because of the light spray they will produce (depending on the fixture). Overhead spot / cans on a separate dimmer for reading light is important if you want to read in the room! I don't have those in my theater, and is high on my "If I did it over" list...

Your seating distance will guide your screen size. Pick that last, as it's easy to test out different sizes for your personal preference using a white bedsheet or photographer's backdrop paper. 120" from a 10' primary seating distance is a very large image. My front row is 10', and my 108" screen (16x9 / 1.85:1) is as big as I'd go personally.

On your rack placement - make sure you have access to the rear of the rack. Are you expecting that rack to pull out on casters or is it fixed in place (the latter is better, but - ). Assuming that's a cabinet / recess that it's sitting in, you'll need to use one of the AXS or AXSR pull-out / swivel racks to be able to access the gear. Those both have some depth requirements beyond the 20-26" for the rack itself for managing cables - you should spend some time reading the specs from the Middle Atlantic site to get this all correct.

Lastly, make sure this room has proper HVAC sizing for the number of people you expect to be in there, and there must be a return in the room - as you'll have the doors shut will be generating a lot of heat... The room should be HVAC-sized like a kitchen, not a bedroom.

The circles that lay on a wall are sconces, and the other circles are where the builder placed the prewired ceiling speaker locations. For lighting, I am thinking of putting canned lights on a separate dimmer switch than the sconces. I haven’t shown any lights yet. The Grafic Eye looks interesting. I will check it out after work tonight. I like the idea of controlling each light zone separately.

The builder has already placed all the termination of the smurf tubes to the back right corner of the room. I completely agree that placing the audio / video rack in the closet might be a better solution. I can ask the builder to place an outlet with the closet. I would just have to run the wire drops myself. (Not impossible, but I live in TX and it can get damn hot working in the attic this time of year. ) It is probably worth it. The wife would prefer putting something else in that space.

I currently have floor standing speakers for the 5.1. I initially plan on just fitting/stuffing the two side standing speakers in the room behind the seating. Eventually, I will change the two side standing speakers for in-walls. The two boxes at the bottom are the air vent and projector. I’ve noted that the two rear surrounds would be better off placed closer in.

The builder placed the smurf tube at 10’ but forgot to put in an electrical outlet. I agree that it’s a bad position and will now ask him to add the outlet behind the projector location which is very near the entrance. At this point, I know he isn’t going to move the smurf tube. At worst I can just put a cover it and rerun the other drops myself.

The projector calculator says the 12’ is pushing the limits but I should be able to get 120” by backing up the projector a few inches. Great suggestion and I will just use something white as a background to gauge the screen size instead of guessing and purchasing the wrong screen.

I had planned on using a rack with the wheel coasters. If I place the gear within the closet, I will have to look at other solutions. I am not handy with carpenter tools so building something would be time consuming, but might give it that extra appeal I have seen in some many of the other builds.
I’ll look tonight about the A/C vents. I believe there are two vents for inlet and one in the back as an outlet.

I was thinking the door to the closet would be the access to affixed av rack outside the room.

With a single row of seating, an acoustically transparent screen would work if you wanted no visible speakers. If you
repositioned the spots lights out from the wall, then a soffit around the room would add home theater drama, and be available
to run conduit from the av rack to the AT space up front.

A lighting plan would be something like the front screen lights in the soffit as zone 1, the sconces as zone 2, the four in ceiling spots as zone 3,
with the snack counter as zone 4. Or maybe the snack counter would be paired with the front two in ceiling spots and the seating spots be the fourth
zone.

After seeing the Juanflaco build, I need to rethink the idea of a soffit on an 8' ceiling. I not sure about the acoustic transparent screen and shortening the room. I need to lay it out and play with around..

The 90deg turn of the AV rack looks good. How would I control the gear? Currently I am using a Logitech 900 remote.

The upsides of an AT screen are the front speakers and sub/s are visually removed from the room, along with any front corner bass traps.
You also don't end up pushing the LR speakers into the room's corners, and you can use three identical speakers up front and the center
channel doesn't get shoved down low.

RF goes through walls. I assume the remote also does infrared (ir) so I would recommend an infrared repeater system with the ir receiver up front below the screen.

This is a pretty old and dated thread, but I thought it was the right place to show progress and ask some advice.

I have the JVC 4910 (my first projector) and the Stewart Neve 110" screen on order and hoping everything makes it before Christmas. I am trying to decide how far to drop the projector down from the ceiling. Also, I am concerned about the center speaker height and having light reflection issues.

I chose the 110" diagonal screen size as a compromise to the 152" throw distance. I could have squeezed a 123" into the space, but the JVC would be near its maximum zoom. For the 110" screen, I plan on a sitting distance of 10 feet give or take.

In the images below, I have the projector being dropped by a 6" tube. When I use tape to outline the screen location on the wall to match the rendering, viewing feels natural and pretty comfortable. The 6" drop brings the bottom of the project a little less than 2" lower than the door entrance (as seen in the third image). Do I need to bite the bullet and just raise the screen 3 inches? I am trying to keep the center of the projectors lense even with the top of the screen.

My front speakers are located out away from the back wall and after some testing, I prefer their sound this way. Being so far out, I am worried about screen reflections. Also, do I need to be worried about reflections from the center channel? The speakers are high gloss black.

The images are missing the sub and the surround speakers. When I get a chance I will add them.